New information focuses search for missing Aurora boy

By Ted Gregory, Tribune Reporter

Police on Friday said that new information in the case of a missing Aurora boy may help narrow their search, but that locating him remains a daunting challenge.

"Obviously, it's a painstaking process," Aurora Public Information Director Dan Ferrelli said after the Police Department released an analysis of sediment and plants on the SUV that Timmothy Pitzen was riding in around the time of his disappearance May 13.

Authorities also provided four brief surveillance videos taken May 11-13 at various locations after Timmothy's mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, picked up the 6-year-old at his Aurora elementary school.

About 12:30 p.m. May 14, employees of a Rockford motel found Fry-Pitzen's body in her room after she had committed suicide. In a note, Fry-Pitzen said Timmothy was safe but did not disclose his location.

Authorities reported that the results of the examination of material on Fry-Pitzen's SUV indicate the 2004 Ford Expedition stopped for an unknown time on a gravel shoulder, gravel road or gravel turnout likely in Lee or Whiteside counties. But the stop also could have occurred in areas of Carroll, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago counties, police said.

After the stop near "an asphalt secondary road," the vehicle then "backed into a grassy meadow or field to a spot that is nearly treeless," Aurora police stated in the one-page report.

Birch and oak trees and Queen Anne's Lace and black mustard plants grew near the spot where the SUV stopped, the report states. The land was not agricultural, and "the evidence strongly suggests that (uncut) grasses have been the only major plants growing in the immediate area," according to the report. A pond, small stream or creek is nearby, police said.

Ferrelli said the report eliminates farm fields as a place to search. Ongoing analysis of the SUV is expected to yield additional information that can be used with detailed maps, which may allow investigators to pinpoint search locations, Ferrelli said.

The videos show Fry-Pitzen and Timmothy walking around the KeyLime Cove Resort in Gurnee and checking in at the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells. Police also provided security camera footage of Fry-Pitzen entering and exiting Sullivan's Foods in Winnebago.

Timmothy is about 4 feet 2 inches and weighs about 70 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information can call Aurora police at 630-256-5500.